Lost links & Re-ups

On any post, if the link is no longer good, leave a comment if you want the music re-uploaded. As long as I still have the file, or the record, cd, or cassette to re-rip, I will gladly accommodate in a timely manner all such requests.

Slinging tuneage like some fried or otherwise soused short-order cook

31 July 2013

Another offering from the great Ocora label. Field
recordings of Hindu & Buddhist ceremonies (& two Catholic hymns
recorded at the house of Clement Fernando, on the island of Duwa, Sri
Lanka…Clement plays Jesus in the Easter Passion Plays)recorded on the wing, live & unrehearsed,
with slowly rising vocal drones, some big-bellied oboe, double-headed drums,
chanting Bhikku monks, & phallic cults (the Siva Linga cult on the first
side worships the flower adorned lingam or male member – it is a mixture of Brahmin
& pre-Hindu fertility cult).

Read the notes from the inside gatefold included with the
file for the fascinating story of how these recording came about, their trials
& travails...

Raakasha (a phrase that
refers to the ancient language of Sinhala, the mother tongue of the Sinhalese
people, who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka) is an Sri Lankan ethno folk/ambient band with black metal
undertones. They formed in the early dawn of 2008. Beelzebub -yakbera & drums & Deshapriya - bass
got together with a concept for the Raaksha Project. The concept of the project
was to create music expressing the beauty & atrocity of ancient Sri Lankan
realms & bringing it into modern day society. This unique genre of Pure
Hela Metal is characterized by furiously shredded guitar riffs, bowel shaking
bass, animalistic-decimated drum lines & inhuman shrieks & growls
for vocals.

For centuries Sri Lanka
has slowly been turning away from its rich cultural heritage, a heritage soaked
in blood, brutality, war & hate as well as being entrenched in peace, honor,
& mind warping Spiritualistic rituals. In 2008 the Raakasha Project decided
to address this slow fade of ancient knowledge. They incorporate ritual music
with raw black metal.

“Sidhapathini” is a song dedicated to the goddess Sri Sidha Paththini. The song
starts with a howl of the guitars, a clean electric guitar sound that gives it
a dark & ambient atmosphere, bizarre yet trance-like. The second part of
the song fades in as a devil chanter begins to chant an ancient spell in the
background while a depressive distortion sound fills the entire song. This song
couples minimalism on the one hand, with monotonous hypnotic rhythms on the
other. Together they create a sort of unity that leaves a strange impression on
the listener; especially on those of us from Western countries.

30 July 2013

The Murung are people
living beyond the Chittagong plain in the hills
of West Bangladesh, near the Burmese (Myanmar) border. Consisting of a
population of around 50,000, they have their own language & have been able
to avoid being converted to the neighboring religions.

Their main musical
instrument is the plung, a mouth-organ whose origin is from the region of Burma & Cambodia. It is made of a
wind-chest made of a calabash gourd, several bamboo pipes between three to
five, & a bamboo mouth piece. Each pipe has a hole & contains a free
reed which vibrates when the hole is closed by the fingers of the players. The
reed will vibrate either when inhaling or exhaling.

A plung ensemble can
contain between ten to twenty instruments of different sizes. The music is
repetitive & rhythmic. It creates more tone-color melodies than real
melodies. It is heard during particular events such as weddings, funerals, or
other public celebrations & ceremonies. There is also another version of
the plung, called the rina plung. It accompanies litanies, lists of names of
ancestors, or love poems, which are half-sung & half-murmured. These songs
are accompanied by ecstatic dances.

This record was produced
in France
during the Festival de l'Imaginaire. This Murung music was heard for the first
time outside of their native hills of Bangladesh.

29 July 2013

In 1970, King Jigme Darje Wangchuck of Bhutan
invited English ethnomusicologist John Levy to record & document the music
of Bhutan.
Levy was a British mystic, artist, & musician best known for translating
the works of his guru Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon, Atma Darshan & Atma
Niviriti into English. He was born into a wealthy aristocratic
family but at one point in his life gave up his entire fortune & went to
live in India
with only a loincloth & a begging bowl.Levy was an expert in
Asian folk music, especially that of India,
Nepal, & Bhutan.

These recordings are from the field tapes from Levy’s Nagra-S
tape recorder taped in 1971. They have been re-mastered & released as a two
CD set entitled, Tibetan Buddhist Rites from the Monasteries of Bhutan. Four schools of thought
dominate the religious landscape of Himalayan Buddhism; they are the Gelukpa,
Nyingmapa, Kagyu, & Sakhya orders. Each of the schools interact with one
another & share similarities, yet they also differ in aspects of practice,
certain teachings (philosophical & epistemological), & also musical
traditions.

In Bhutan
it was the Drukpa Kagyu (or more simply, Drukpa) order, a derivative of the Kagyu order, that took political hold. The religious &
musical life of Bhutanese Buddhists is dominated by the traditions of both this
Drukpa & also to some extent the Nyingmapa orders.

These recordings do well to present the clarity of Levy’s scholarship
as well as the musical forms akin to both the Nyingmapa & Drukpa. The two
CDs are divided into three parts, with the first presenting ritual music of the
Drukpa. These songs were recorded in the towns of Thimpu & Punashka. They draw upon dominant
religious forms found throughout Bhutan as well as folk elements
particular to that region. The second section presents music of the ritual
dances from both the Nyingmapa & Drukpa orders. Both monastic as well as
public ceremonies from two separate annual festivals are presented in the third
section.

While the music on the two-disc set is presented as Tibetan
Buddhist Rites, it is distinctly Bhutanese. The opening track, a
propitiatory rite, serves as an invitation to Genyen, a protector deity
specifically associated with an area in Bhutan
in the Thimpu Valley. "Chham gi Serkyem gi Yang”
(Tune for Offering of Consecrated

Drink) also calls attention to the particulars of Bhutanese
Buddhism: calling attention to specific protector deities of Bhutan & of
Serkyem, a Bhutanese style on beer.

The recordings also serve to present a majority of the
various instruments used in both monastic & non-monastic Bhutanese song.
The music of the shawm (a double-reeded long horn), the silayen (cymbals),
dramnyen (seven-string long-necked guitar), & zurlim (flute) are all
represented. Yet the most spectacular musical element of this comes from the
individual voices & polytonal throat chanting of the monks. The most
compelling piece, in praise of the Nyingmapa scholar Padmasambhava (Guru
Rinpoche), is performed by a manip, or wandering ascetic.

Levy did a remarkable job here of allowing the music to be
played & presented in its natural state, not as the project for recording,
but as an extension of the performance of everyday life.

28 July 2013

Nepal
has a diversified music. On the one hand, raga music (an influence from India) is considered their national art, while
folk music is regional & is related to the many different ethnic people of Nepal. Except
for the two excerpts of raga pieces ("Basant" &
"Ramkali"), this CD presents a sampling of the folk & sacred
music of Nepal.
In fact, religious & folk music are closely tied to the music of the Himalayas.

There are also farming, seasonal, heroic
songs, & dances, but with religious characters underlying them. Despite
India's influence on their music, they have very few instruments: the Nepalese sarangi, the basuri (the Nepalese version of the Indian bansuri, a bamboo
transverse flute), the bai (a straight wooden flute), & the ponga (a long
copper horn), plus a good number of percussion instruments (such as drums,
cymbals), which will vary, depending on the ethnic people a song or dance comes
from.

This field recordings were recorded by ethnomusicologist
Deben Bhattacharya between March 1973 & April 1975. It was released in 1999.

Nepathya
(also spelled Nepathaya) is a
popular Nepalese band that was formed by three students from Pokhara,
Nepal studying in Kathmandu in the early 1990s. Nepathya is best known for
its blending of folk melodies into new, youth-friendly pop & rock tune. Since
its inception, Nepathya has gained consistent popularity & recognition.
They are one of the most talented bands in Nepal. Their songs portray life in contemporary
Nepal.
They will be the first Nepali band to ever perform in Wembley Arena in the U.K
at a show this August 3rd.

The moving force behind this band is the singer Amrit Gurung.
He is the only member who has been with Nepathya from the start. Traveling
throughout Nepal
is one of Gurung’s favorite pastimes. He has been to more than 70 of the 75
districts of Nepal,
most of them on foot.

Aaina Jhyal is only Nepathya’s 9th release in 20
years. Nepathya’s usual style is Nepali folk tunes. From their 1st album Nepathya
to their 6th Bhedako Oon Jasto, the band had pioneered the sound of
Nepali Folk-Rock. On Ghatana & Mero
Desh, their 7th & 8th albums respectively, their music
focused more on social themes; a reflection of conflict & transition Nepal
was going through at the time. With Aaina Jhyal (Glass Window) they have
returned to their roots of pure Nepali Folk- Rock.

27 July 2013

I'm in the midst of negotiations with my travel agent right now. I didn't really like my itinerary for Asia so I wanted to change it. Too much jumping around, South, West, East, North without any real rhyme or reason. I like my journey to have more flow to it. I've changed the master list to match my new agenda but my agent says I booked this awhile ahead & she might have a hard time re-arranging it at this late date. But what am I paying her for, right? Anyhow, India is my first stop either way, so here we are. Then, no matter what, I heading to Nepal. I'm running out of hash, that block of Afghani black is dwindling fast. But back to the real issue here...the musick.

Ananda Shankar was born in Almora, Uttar Pradesh, India
on December 11, 1942. He did not learn sitar from his uncle Ravi Shankar, but
from Lalmani Misra at the much respected Benares Hindu
University. Probably the
most major career decision he took was to move to LA in 1960 where he rejoiced in
a life away from the conservative mentality of India of that time. In America,
he got to played sitar with Jimi Hendrix.

On his self-titled 1970s release, Shankar creates great
covers of the Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” & the Doors’ “Light My Fire”
along with many originals of his own.

Highly sought after for years now, Sa-Re-Ga Machan
was released in 1981. It showcases Shankar's unmistakable sound which fuses
Western & Eastern music so perfectly. Shankar had a desire to incorporate
both the traditional instrumentation of Indian classical music with modern
Western instruments such as the electric guitar & synthesizer.On Sa-Re-Ga Machan the two distinct
sounds are conjoined perfectly. The album opens with possibly the most stunning
piece, the ten-minute title track which sums up the musician's intent
perfectly. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how contemporary so much of this
sounds being that it is from 1981.

The Sitar Beat series collected some of the wildest,
heaviest, & most psychedelic Indian Funk ever recorded. These volumes are
lessons in just how ahead of their time India’s Bollywood composers were in
the 60s, 70s, & early 80s. These are Indian deep funk &
psycho-psychedelic masterpieces recorded for the Bollywood film industry. There
are Bollywood funk classics by acclaimed composers such as Kalanji Ananji &
R.D. Burman, with extended breakbeats & re-edits that upped the funk to the
boiling point.

How exactly did Bollywood corner the market on awesome.
Strange cross-cultural greatness can transpire when musicians from the East
hold up a mirror to Western traditions. Similar to what happened with the
confounding, weird, & aggressive skewering of punk & hardcore that came
out of Japan decades later, music directors from India in the 1970s offered
wonderfully twisted compositions rife with Western film score elements
exaggerated to extremes, perhaps even beyond Western tastes.

Following the success of the first Sitar Beat compilation
CD, a collection of Indian & Indian-inspired European funky selections from
the 60s & 70s, here’s Volume 2, with some of the rarest & funkiest
tracks recorded between the years of 1970 & 1984. Ironically (Sitar
Beat!) only two tracks here feature sitars prominently.

There are sixteen tracks of tasty Indian flavor, blending
heavy beats with the sounds of the sitar & the lush vocal sounds of beloved
Indian singers. The strange, psychedelic sounds possess their own cultural
mish-mash of styles combining traditional Indian instrumentation & melodies
with film music’s intensity.

Charanjit
Singh was one of a kind in the Hindi film industry of the 1960s & 70s, a
field that already had its share of eccentric individuals. He was a seasoned veteran
of countless Bollywood soundtrack orchestras, always turning up at session with
the latest new synthesizer acquired at great expense from London
or Singapore.
He was not, however, widely regarded among his country folk as someone pushing
the envelope. His band, the Charanjit Singh Orchestra usually found employment
performing for weddings, playing the popular hits of the day. Although he
played on many popular Bollywood recordings, Charanjit Singh was never a
household name.

In 1982, though, Singh did something unusual. Inspired by the sound of disco
imports from the West making waves among Bombay's hipster crowd, he went into
the studio with a newly purchased state-of-the-art kit: a Roland Jupiter-8
keyboard (The Jupiter-8 or JP-8 as it was known is an eight-voice
polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early
1981, Roland's flagship synthesizer for the first half of the 1980s); a Roland
TR-808 drum machine; & a Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer. Singh had decided
to make a record that combined western dance music with the droning ragas of
Indian classical music. Recorded in two days, Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat
attracted a small bit of interest (excerpts finding their way on to national
radio) but it was basically a commercial flop. It was quickly forgotten.

In 2002, record collector Edo Bouman came across Ten Ragas
in a shop in Delhi.
"Back at my hotel I played it on my
portable player, and I was blown away. It sounded like acid house, or like an
ultra-minimal Kraftwerk." But it was the date on the record that
shocked Bouman. Released in 1982, it predated the first acid house record, often
regarded as Phuture's Acid Trax, by a good five years. Still today there is
raging speculation that Ten Ragas is a hoax cooked up by some Aphex
Twin-style techno joker as a prank. Much of the debate is fueled by the fact
that Singh made at least 10 albums, all of cover tunes.

But in Singh’s own words, “Frankly, this was the best thing I did. Other albums are all film songs
I just played. But this was my own composition. Do something all of your own,
& you can make something truly different."

24 July 2013

Thought I’d take a day
off from duties. Here’s a compilation of musick from the ‘stans. It starts of
with the first song from Ulytau that I posted for Kazakhstan
& with the exception of a song each by Davlatmand Kholov (Tajikistan) & Munadjat Yulchieva (Uzbekistan)
the rest of the tunes are by artists I may have overlooked or been unable to
find sufficient material to present. Caint never git enuff o’ dis stuff.

Here’s a Rough Guide
compilation, an album covering the music of Central Asia as defined essentially
by the 'stans of the former Soviet Union: Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, & Tajikstan. The
music on Rough Guide to the Music of Central Asia ranges from the classical
traditions of the region, as hailing from Samarkand
& Tashkent,
to modern hard rock, as well as all points on the spectrum between the
extremes. A number of the performers herein are fusionists or revisionists, combining
traditional folk music with contemporary sounds. The album starts on such a
note with a mix of classical Kazakh tunes pounded over by electric guitars. Pop
singers from the last decade of cultural exchange are sprinkled throughout the
album, as recorded locally or through international channels (some have some
decent fame in Europe). Folk performers &
classicists also get their share of playing time, with masters of the various
Central Asian lutes prominent, such as Turgun Alimatov. The album carries a
little of something for everyone. It may provide a good reference for current
world music travelers to find something new, as well.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (نصرت فتح علی خان) was born in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad), Punjab, Pakistan on October 13, 1948. He
was a world-renowned Pakistani musician, primarily a singer of Qawwali, the
devotional music of the Sufis. Considered one of the greatest singers ever
recorded, he possessed extraordinary vocal abilities. He could perform at a
high level of intensity for several hours. Extending the 600-year old Qawwali
tradition of his family, Khan is widely credited with introducing Qawwali music
to international audiences.He is popularly known as ‘Shahenshah-e-Qawwali’,
meaning ‘The King of Kings of Qawwali’.

He was the fifth child & first son of Fateh Ali Khan, a musicologist,
vocalist, instrumentalist, & Qawwal. Khan's family, which included four older
sisters & a younger brother, Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan, all grew up in central
Faisalabad.
Initially, his father did not want Khan to follow the family's vocation. He had
his heart set on Khan choosing a much more respectable career path, &
becoming a doctor, because he felt Qawwali artists had low social status.
However, Khan showed such an aptitude for & interest in Qawwali that his
father finally relented.Khan began by learning to play tabla
alongside his father before progressing to learn Raag Vidya & Bol
Bandish. He then went on to learn to sing within the classical framework
of khayal (khayal is musical form with a single melodic line & no harmonic
parts…the forms are called raag, & each raag is a complicated framework of
melodic rules). Khan had his first public performance in 1964 at age of 16, at
his father's chelum (a traditional graveside ceremony for his father that took
place forty days after his father's death). Khan's training with his father was
cut short by his father’s death, leaving Khan's paternal uncles, Mubarak Ali
Khan & Salamat Ali Khan, to complete his training.

In 1971, after the death of Mubarak Ali Khan, Khan became the official
leader of the family Qawwali party (Qawwal musical group). The party became
known as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan,
Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan & Party. Khan has released 60+ albums,
cassettes, & CDs. I am not sure of the exact number. I have never seen a
complete discography, although many claim to be.

Khan was on his way to Los Angeles,CA to receive
a kidney transplant when on August 11, 1997 he was admitted to Cromwell Hospital,
London with
kidney & liver failure. He died of a sudden cardiac arrest on Saturday, August
16, 1997 at age 48.His body was repatriated to Faisalabad, Pakistan
where his funeral was a public affair.

Mustt
Mustt is the first Qawwali fusion album, a collaboration between Khan
& guitarist & producer Michael Brook. It was rock musician Peter
Gabriel who suggested that Brook & Khan work together.The album
was released in 1990 on Gabriel's Real World Records label. The song
"Mustt Mustt" was remixed by British trip hop group Massive Attack.
It was a club hit in the United
Kingdom, being the first song in Urdu to
reach the British charts.It is included on this release.

From the enclosed booklet:

“When the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomehni banned all music in Iran &
declared it to be sacrilegious, his views by no means reflected the outlook of
all Muslims. In fact, Islam's Sufi sect believes music to be a sacred &
necessary element of spiritual life. Like Hindus, the Sufis passionately
encourage meditation, dancing, & chanting. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is a
master of traditional Qawwali, the music of the Sufis. Soulful & hypnotic,
Khan's passionate singing on these songs of praise underscores the richness
& vitality of Sufi culture. While Qawwali music goes back centuries, the
use of synthesizers adds a modern edge to the highly absorbing Mustt Mustt.”

Faiz Ali Faiz was born
in 1962 in Sharaqpur, between Lahore & Faisalabad, Pakistan. He comes from
a family of Qawwals going back seven generations. Faiz Ali started his
professional career in 1978, creating at the same time his own Qawwali
ensemble. Though Faiz is from Lahore, he
practices the doaba style from eastern Pakistan. He admits he has been
influenced by Sham-Chaurasi, a famous Khayal singing school to which Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan’s uncle Salamat Ali Khan belonged.

Faiz Ali learned
classical music with Ghulam Shabbir Khan & Jafar Khan. He received Qawwali
training with Masters Muhammad Ali Faridi & Abdur Rahim Faridi Qawwal.
Faiz's voice is characterized by its large range & a specially rich tone
that reminds many of the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who has been his
revered inspiration, whose compositions he enjoys singing. Faiz is today
regarded as one of the preeminent Qawwali singers of the world.

The Kominas
are a Pakistani-American Desi punk rock band formed in Lowell, Massachusetts.
The band currently includes Hassan Ali Malik - guitar, Basim Usmani -
bass,& Abdullah Saeed - drums.

The first Kominas' song ever released was "Rumi was a
Homo (but Wahhaj is a Fag)" on the website Muslim Wake Up! in response to the
then recent homophobic comments made by the Imam Siraj Wahhaj. In 2007, The
Kominas pressed 2000 copies of their first album, Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay which is now out of print.

Since the beginning, The Kominas have piqued the attention
of mainstream media. The Guardian
called their music "irreverent and
un-PC".As theL.A. Times put it, "The
recognition that The Kominas have gotten is a Catch-22 for them: while they
welcome the attention from both the mainstream media and the blogosphere, they
resent that the focus has been more on the Muslim angle than on their music."CNN wrote "Many conservative
Muslims may peg The Kominas as heretics for their suggestive & irreverent
lyrics. But the musicians say they are just trying to show both cultures how
broad the spectrum of belief can be."The band has
expressed frustration with the lack of quality music journalists covering their
work.